


two halves

by Thealmostrhetoricalquestion



Series: Rarepair Bingo [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Fluff, Growing Old Together, M/M, Old Age, Photographs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 23:51:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14682099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion/pseuds/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion
Summary: It’s funny, how the pictures spread out in front of them don’t even begin to capture a fraction of the love they’ve shared.It’s funny, how you can love someone so much, that you miss them even when they’re right beside you.





	two halves

**Author's Note:**

> Last one! Scorbus, for the prompts Old Photographs, Awkward Piano Sex, and Sharing an Ice Cream, Childless by Choice too, now that I think of it! And Limbo! Thank you for such a lovely experience! <3

The photographs spill out over the carpet as Albus tips the cardboard box upside down. Scorpius looks up from his book and folds the page over when he recognises the mess on the floor. 

“Tidying, like I asked you to?” Scorpius teases. His hair is soft and on the edge of grey, the wrinkles in his face more pronounced when he smiles. 

“Started with the wardrobe and found this in the bottom,” Albus says. His back protests and his knees ache when he sits on the floor, but the carpet is soft enough, and Scorpius joins him, leaning against him, so he can deal with it. 

“Merlin, these are so old,” Scorpius says, picking up a photograph and squinting down at his own, youthful face. It’s squished against Albus’s in the picture, and a truly impressive, towering ice cream sits between them. They both have a spoon in their hands and vanilla around their mouths. 

“We’re old,” Albus grumbles, entirely unhappy about it. James likes to joke that Albus has been old since the day he was born, a grumpy old man trapped in the body of a baby, and that age is just finally catching up to his attitude.

“Look at this one!” Scorpius says, digging through the pile to find a picture of Albus at the Weasley Christmas Party. He’s in the midst of limbo-ing under a conjured pole, a paper hat falling from his messy hair. Albus watches as the younger him in the picture gives in, knees crumbling, and lies flat on the floor, swearing soundlessly at whoever’s surrounding him. 

“Couldn’t you have found one with a bit of dignity left in it?” Albus asks, rifling through the photographs until he finds one with Scorpius in it, talcum powder in his hair and James’s daughter in his arms, giggling up at him. 

They’ve never had kids. They’ve never wanted them, and Albus doesn’t regret it. Scorpius doesn’t either. It’s left them time to explore, time to love each other in every way imaginable, and although some part of him has wondered what it would be like to see Scorpius holding a baby that belonged to them, the rest of him is happy with his life. It’s been a long, good one. 

“Remember this?” Scorpius asks, lifting an old photograph, in which a pristine white piano sits in the center of an old house in Paris. There are no people in the picture, just the gentle breeze that lifts the curtains, but there doesn’t need to be. 

“How could I forget?” Albus asks, with an amalgamation of a smirk and a wince. “At least we ticked piano sex off our list.” 

“Awkward piano sex,” Scorpius corrects, blushing slightly at the faded memory. Albus likes that he can still make him blush after all these years. “It was definitely awkward, I remember that.” 

“I think I had a few piano keys lodged up my arse for days,” Albus recalls fondly. He selects another picture and falls still. 

It’s Scorpius, standing beside a shelf in Aunt Hermione's old bookshop. He’s got a book open in his hands, a patch of dusty sunlight illuminating the warmth on his face as he reads. Albus still remembers the way his heart had rolled over and bloomed and unfurled at the sight. The memories might be old, but they aren’t going anywhere. 

“Is it strange that I can see you in that picture, even though you’re behind the camera?” Scorpius asks softly. 

Albus feels warm. He shakes his head, lost for words, and leans closer. 

Scorpius rests his head on Albus’s shoulder. He smells exactly the way he always has, like books and mint from the leaves he chews. 

It’s funny, how the pictures spread out in front of them don’t even begin to capture a fraction of the love they’ve shared. It’s funny, how you can love someone so much, that you miss them even when they’re right beside you. 

Scorpius is always close, and yet Albus always misses him. He thinks it’s because his heart is split in two; one half belongs to Scorpius, and the other he keeps for himself, and even when they’re kissing, or curled together on the porch swing, laughing at the night sky, he craves the other half of his heart. 

He always will.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you! <3


End file.
